oil spill commission

Monday, July 12, 2010. At a town hall open mic hosted by the Presidential Oil Spill Commission, Drew Landry, an unemployed Cajun crawfisherman, whipped out his guitar and sang to the omnipotent administrators. They shifted uneasily in their seats, knowing they're supposed to appear receptive and appreciative. They are placed in the unlikely situation of having to listen to an extended bit of straight-from-the-heart eloquence, of plainspoken home truths, rather than hogging the limelight with their usual protocols and platitudes.

Landry sings about living close to the land and water, a simple, hardscrabble existence that was already in jeopardy, even before Hurricane Katrina, but has seemingly been administered a death blow by the current spill. He and his neighbors in southwest Louisiana work the crawfish holes or the oil fields, pick floating cypress logs out of the bayou, do the odd construction job, hunt and trap. The recent calamity, coming after years of wetlands deforestation, has been devastating to their way of life. He expresses their hardship in this song.